Ealing Fencers Take Bronze at Redbridge

Juniors come third at youth games

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Ealing’s junior fencers enjoyed a successful weekend at the Balfour Beatty London Youth Games, matching their bronze in last year’s competition as over 1200 young people from across London competed across seven sports at Redbridge Sports Centre.

The London Youth Games has a good history of producing fencers at international level with former competitors Richard Kruse and James Davis both going on to compete for Great Britain at Olympic level.

The Ealing junior squad of Douglas Ashby, 13, David Cuss, 13, Fernanda Da Silva, 12, Emma Frechin, 13, Yaris Gaur, 14 and William Price, 14 came top of their group with convincing 45-17 and 45-27 wins over Lambeth and Bromley respectively.

Ealing then saw off the challenge of Wandsworth in the quarter-finals 43-27 before going on to face an improving Haringey squad. In a tense and high quality match it was eventual champions Haringey who did just enough to go through to the final with a 41-38 victory leaving the Ealing juniors with bronze.

With the Ealing senior team finishing ninth in their competition, this left the west Londoners in fifth place in the overall standings Despite just missing out on the junior final team manager Denis Cranwell was pleased with his squad’s performance.

He said: “I was very pleased with the performance. We knew we had a solid team and they all helped each other out. Everyone fenced well and they supported each other. I hoped for at least a semi-final place and they came so close in the last match as well.

“They just got pipped at the post so it was a brilliant performance by all of them. They really worked hard all day and their accuracy was great. They have got good judgement and they have different aspects of their fencing that they excel in and bring together as a team.”

He also feels that knowing they are competing for their boroughs gives them an extra push. “They have a sense of fighting for their borough and a sense of competition and achievement. They put a lot of work in and got something out of it today. We’ll be back again next year - hopefully another colour medal would be nice!”

The Balfour Beatty London Youth Games is Europe’s largest annual youth sports event. A record 104,463 young Londoners took part in the 2012 London Youth Games.

The 2013 London Youth Games will be the biggest in history featuring 85 competitions across 33 sports and 27 event days, culminating in finals week at the National Sports Centre Crystal Palace in July where the overall winning borough are awarded the Jubilee Trophy.

There were 44 former London Youth Games competitors who took part in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games winning 14 medals, including nine gold from Mo Farah (athletics), David Weir (disability athletics), Bradley Wiggins (cycling), Joanna Rowsell (cycling), Naomi Riches (disability rowing). To find out more and to get involved, visit www.londonyouthgames.org


 

 

17th June 2013

 


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